Category Archives: Mobile Technology

It’s fair to say that for many mainstream users, the Twitter experience is pretty broken for anything other than celebrity stalking. It’s way too easy to make mistakes with serious consequences (DM for the fail), @replies are wonky, and #hashtags #really #OMG #canwekilltheseobnoxiousthings #JimmyFallon #JustinTimberlake #FTW. Real-time translation is nice, but it’s the sprinkles, not the cake. Here are my simple fixes to the Twitter experience that I’d love to see happen:

Why on earth is there a link, highly visible, to the exact page the user is on? This makes, literally, no sense and contributes to a cluttered interface. Fix this: removing all awkward links.

Eliminate character use for @mentions

Personally I’d question the 140-character limit at this point – it’s arbitrary and while limits are a good thing, maybe 200 is better? Maybe 250? Who knows? Frcing txtspk on nrml ppl is rlly annoying if u want their attn in the long run. Kthxbye. Either way, using characters in communications means the system discourages people with longer twitter names from conversations, and further discourages users from having engagements with multiple people simultaneously. So @ESPN is rewarded, @BleacherReport is punished. And those poor @Kardashians. Fix this: each @reply only counts as a single character each.

So now I could write a tweet that could include @all @three @kardashians but those 22 characters would be reduced to 3, and I’d still have tons of space for telling them how amazing they are and make the world a better place. I mean, I don’t actually know what they do, but they wouldn’t be so popular if they weren’t somehow contributing to the greater good, I assume.

Ditto for hashtags and URLs

Before I go into whether or not I think #hashtags #make #sense, again if we want to see more engagements with more people on more topics, Twitter should encourage their use (and links), as opposed to discourage it. Even with a URL shortener (next topic), linking out takes up far too much of my precious character space. Fix this: each #hashtag and link only count as a single character each.

Auto-fix ALL link URLs with sensical content

I don’t want to see a bit.ly or an ow.ly or a t.co – ever again.

Why do we have to see these things? Beyond the possibility for malicious links, it’s just not necessary. Fix this: The twitter “client” (web or mobile app) should replace all these links with either the full destination URL, or better yet, the Title tag of the destination page.

Eliminate “mistakes” in DM or @replies

In every medium but Twitter, mistakes are correctible before sending. Sure you might have meant to BCC your colleague instead of CC’ing them, or you accidentally hit reply-all, but these mistakes are in plain sight prior to hitting send. In Twitter-land, since one can create a DM via the Create Tweet button, it’s far too easy to make a mistake.

Similarly, I’d make a big wager that even highly proficient Twitter users are unaware that tweets starting with an @reply are NOT seen by their followers in their own feed. So when someone wants to go on a “@brandname you destroyed my life” rant with the intent of public visibility, then wonders why there’s no retweets happening, they should be able to figure it out. Fix this: eliminate the ability to craft DMs other than by the “DM” button, and add a pop-up informing the user about their attempts at either manual DMs or @replies so they understand the consequence of the Tweet.

Fix Search & Hashtags

I am not an expert at search, but I accept that trying to search a colossal data feed that’s constantly moving and updating sounds like a big problem. And hashtags are just plain ugly. But either way, it is increasingly true that neither manual search or following hashtags is an effective way to get information out of the Twitter stream beyond a lot of noise. Fix this: you’re kind of on your own here, but you employ a lot of smart people – make this a priority.

Improve the Game Mechanics

Last I read the average Twitter user (who even Tweets, at all) has about a dozen followers, most of whom are likely just bots informing them about deals they could get on new iPads. There’s literally no way to “catch up” to people who started a few years ahead of them, and because follower count is so prominently displayed across all aspects of Twitter, the game mechanics inherently discourage becoming an active user. Fix this: there are tons of ways to improve the find & follow experience, which must become part of onboarding and daily use.

Conclusion

I could go on a lot longer on little tweaks here and there. Twitter still has, in my eyes, a lot of interesting potential in so many different fields – but it just has to focus focus focus on product and user engagement. Trending topics is increasingly annoying, the new user experience is still mostly a disaster, etc. Maybe I’ll write another post, or leave it to you to comment here and add your thoughts. Then we can all tweet about it with hashtags and such!

In the early part of the last decade, when everyone was carrying blackberries and phones, the big buzzword was “convergence.” We couldn’t wait to have our phone mashup with our email device and carry just one electronic gadget that did both. The iPhone launched and, though Blackberrys had added phone capabilities, this was true convergence as you could do email, browse the web, make phone calls (sometimes depending on AT&T), and listen to music. This was the first widely adopted and functional “SmartPhone”.

We’re still looking for that great convergence of your Smart Phone with our wallets and every Apple release is preceded by rumors of Near Field Communication (NFC) and mobile wallet. Here are the reasons why as much as I’d love to ditch my George Costanza-sized wallet for one device, this isn’t going to happen this year:

1. Stores don’t take NFC

Sure there are some stores that have NFC terminals, but those account for about 2% of all terminals world-wide. For those drugstores like CVS and Duane Reade that do have NFC, it’s painful to watch a clerk try to be helpful when they have no idea how the technology works. Apple won’t ship a phone with NFC payments that only works in some stores, some of the time.

2. It’s not Globally Equivalent

When Apple ships a product it generally is the same product around the globe. There aren’t iPhone 4x’s in Singapore and iPhone4z’s in Germany. The world gets the same platform with a few modifications to radio frequencies. Sure, they add currencies and countries to iTunes over time, but a core capability always ships around the globe within months.

3. Apple isn’t first to market

Remember the Creative Nomad Jukebox. Most of you won’t, but this was one of the many MP3 players that launched before the iPod . How about the Treo mobile phone and email device. Apple is notorious for not being the first to market with a piece of hardware, but when they launch getting it so right that it blows everyone away. There are plenty of people trying to do NFC like ISIS – the consortium of carriers, MCX – the consortium of merchants, Google – the consortium of Google. Apple is happy to wait and watch how they fail, let them educate the market and spend to “terminalize” stores and then swoop in many years later with an updated PassBook that you’ve been using to go to concerts, movies, board airplanes, etc.

4. Payments is messy

Payments is a complicated beast that has so many hands in the cookie jar of a transaction taking their crumbs that it’s hard to distinguish from beltway politics. When you think of where apple would fit in the ecosystem, they closest you get is a PayPal solution for online, where they can set the merchant discount rate. At the store, unless they became their own payment mark (not happening in 2 weeks), then they’d be riding on someone elses “rails” (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, Amex). Sharing in this transaction with a partner upon whom they’d be reliant is not a very Apple thing to do. They own customers and ecosystems. They don’t share so well. Also, payments is a high-touch, customer complaint wellspring. Without accruing a lot of value to Apple, it doesn’t seem likely they would work to add this without nailing all the other promotional goodness that would yield benefit.

5. Apple isn’t an advertising company

The real money is in promotions and advertising where you don’t take .05% of a transaction,but get to take a bigger chunk by delivering a lead or changing customer behaviour. In previous efforts around advertising, Apple hasn’t had the stomach for these messy and high touch endeavors. Look at iAd and why you don’t see Apple competing, seriously, with Google or even Facebook on that front. They make software and hardware. They generally aren’t great at services.

6. Swipe isn’t broken

Finally, Apple likes to create step-change in consumer experiences. Swipe isn’t broken, nor does tap add that much ease of use and simplicity. Anytime I’ve stood behind someone trying to pay with their mobile phone, I watch as customers get mad while they try and open the payments app, enter the pin code, and wait for the clerk to understand what’s happened because they didn’t hand over a credit card or cash.

So, while Apple may launch a neat way to share songs or photos using BlueTooth LE or NFC, or greater enhancements to their ecosystem of entertainment like a more robust remote for your apple TV, I don’t see payments coming anytime soon for physical world transactions.

It’s my pleasure to unveil my newest product, NextGuide. NextGuide is a hyper-personalized TV listings guide designed specifically for the iPad™. It’s been a six month labor of lots and lots of love, and I’m extremely excited to tell you about it. In a nutshell? We went to the drawing board and utterly reinvented the concept of the TV program guide.

If you think about the concept of a “guide” it’s something that’s evolved over 60 years from supporting 3 to 13 to 80 to 500+ channels. But that’s really all it does, and let’s face it, we no longer live in a 500-channel world. We live in a 500 channel, plus tens of thousands of hours of streaming content on services like Netflix, huge libraries of video on demand from our cable and satellite companies, as well as iTunes itself. It’s effectively an infinite content landscape, and having so much content has crippled the formerly easy process of discovering shows to watch.

As an example, in my house at night, we start by browsing our DVR library, don’t see anything we’re in the mood for, then switch over to live TV. After browsing (painfully) the grid for a while, we give up, turn on the Apple TV, and head to Netflix. Netflix is great, but I have a tendency to see stuff I already know about – Mad Men, Dexter, Weeds, Breaking Bad, etc – all great shows, but not really anything new that I’m ready to consume. Part of the problem here is catch-up TV: if I’ve never watched Mad Men before then I’m a good 80+ hours away from catching up to live, and that sounds painful. Anyhow, after an unsuccessful attempt to find something to stream, I generally end up watching whatever’s on (either Cops, the Shawshank Redemption, or an infomercial), then go to sleep. Sound familiar at all?

So we invented NextGuide, designed to actually help me discover things I *want* to watch. We do that by tilting the concept of Channels, Times, and Genres on its head a little, and instead focus on Shows, People, and Interests.

Shows – we believe people care more about the show they watch than the channel number or time it airs. So NextGuide uses beautiful show cover art to make it easy to find things and “escape” the grid view of numbers and times.

People – we believe TV remains a central zeitgeist component to modern society. When was the last time you chatted with any friend about a show you like (or love)? Probably in the past day or so. NextGuide makes it ridiculously easy to turn conversations, not to mention Facebook Likes, into easily discoverable shows.

Interests – we believe people care about finding things of interest to them, personally. We all have interests, from bands to sports, from cities to hobbies, and these interests define so much of our lives. NextGuide connects you to your interests, and finds them all on TV and streaming services, in a seamless, organic way. Examples of what NextGuide’s found for me over the past few weeks: Bill Murray’s guest appearance on Letterman (seriously, how would I even have known that unless I watch every night??), a live Coldplay concert on Palladium (I didn’t even know the channel was in my lineup), and Bizarre Foods goes to San Francisco (not a show I normally care for, but had to see what Andrew found in my city).

That’s enough writing already, this is one of those apps you just have to experience to get a sense of what we’ve done. It’s a complete paradigm shift for TV viewing, and I’m happy to share it with you. You can download it from the App Store, or watch our quick intro video below.

I can’t wait for your feedback, thanks so much for trying out the app. Thanks to Apple for inventing the iPad so we could have such a cool platform to bring something like this to life. Extra special thanks to my family, friends, coworkers and investors who have made the process of inventing something disruptive more fun than I think I really deserve.

We are getting some amazing press so far today, here are some great pieces:

TUAW – check out this quote: “Until Apple comes up with whatever groundbreaking interface for TV discovery it’s hiding in the labs, NextGuide is likely the next best thing.”

I had the honor to present on a “disruptive” topic at the Grow2012 conference last month in Vancouver, and, big surprise, I opted to talk about TV. I decided to take a bit of a departure from many of my typical presentations and focus on the myths and truths (or at least truthiness) about disruption in the TV industry, with a focus on how our mobile lifestyles are changing the way we think about television. Here’s the video (and slides):

At this point, my iPad has effectively replaced my laptop for everything other than photo management and documents. The former isn’t going to change, but I realized that having a keyboard might notably improve my ability to work on longer docs and emails. I’m currently trying out the Apple wireless keyboard (with handy protective sleeve from local vendor SFBags) though I’ll also give the new Logitech ultrathin keyboard a try (if/when it ever ships).

In my first day the difference was notable. I’ve created Evernotes, long emails, and in general found the keyboard goes a long way. Yay for that. Further, there are some handy keyboard shortcuts that make using it even more pleasant. But I think this could go a long way from where it is. Granted, there’s no debate that the overall experience around finger-based controls and gestures absolutely trumps using a keyboard, but that doesn’t mean a few power features couldn’t go a long way. Here are some hopefully easy-to-implement shortcuts that I think would improve the existing experience:

1. Multi-task app switcher (⌘-tab)
Pushing this combo in OS X results in an application switcher. You can use your mouse to pick an app, or arrows to navigate between them. Same functionality could be present in the iPad – and once you are using a keyboard, it’s actually fairly inconvenient to tap on the screen to do this.

2. Menus (⌘-N, ⌘-R, ⌘-D, etc)
In an app-specific sense, enable shortcuts for “menu features.” For example, in Mail, ⌘-N could start a New Message, ⌘-R could reply, ⌘-D could delete, etc. App developers could have certain liberty here (potentially) or there could just be a limited set of commands. Either would be good for any “text-heavy” app where the keyboard is in use.

3. Home (⌘-Esc or ⌘-Eject, etc)
Simple one – exit the current app back to the home screen.

4. Navigation (⌘-cursor keys)
Per (1) above, but extend it further: if the user is in the “Springboard” interface (aka the “home screen” where you pick an app), enable me to rapidly scroll through apps (or pages of apps) with the keyboard.

5. Switch windows (tab)
Inside any app (with support), the Tab key should switch between windows/frames/inputs. This is already present in Mail, but only when composing messages. Why not elsewhere?

6. App shortcuts (⌘-1, ⌘-2, or F1, F2, etc)
This is definitely a “power user” feature, but let me assign 10 apps I use a lot, and quickly launch them from the keyboard. Alternately, these could be restricted to the 6 apps in the Dock (at the bottom of the home screen).

7. Search (⌘-space)
Much like other tips above, this is borrowing straight out of OS X. Especially considering the amount search is intended for active use within iOS.

8. Settings (⌘-,)
On my Mac, pushing ⌘-, shows preferences for that application. In iOS, there’s a global settings screen (not to mention the plethora of apps that have their own). This shortcut could launch either.

9. Settings Toggles (⌘-F1, ⌘-F2, etc)
Could be predetermined or user-configurable, but how about direct access to toggling certain settings, such as airplane mode, WiFi on/off, etc. I’d want a Bluetooth one too, but it’d probably only work in one way…

I know in the grand scheme of things this is a pretty minor issue. The grand majority of iPad owners aren’t using keyboards, and probably never will. But if someone had time to program Siri with enough depth to tell Zooey Deschanel that it’s not raining out, I can’t see this being too far out of scope…

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As one could imagine, I end up in a lot of conversations about second screen TV apps, companion apps, social TV, etc. Virtually every discussion takes some long varied road to get to a point where all involved agree that the only rule in building next generation TV platforms and products is this: not all TV shows are alike, and experiences must be built with this rule in mind.

Let’s start with #SocialTV – broadly defined in current terms as “people tweeting, checking in, and liking TV shows on social media platforms.” While I’m pretty jaded in my belief that this is resoundingly uninteresting as a topic, it’s important to think of it on a per-genre basis, and in fact, a per show basis. One could state that “dramas” for example won’t garner much social TV activity – who really cares about checking in to shows like CSI or House? Then along comes Game of Thrones, rule broken. Then you could use Game of Thrones data to claim people don’t tweet while watching live TV. And along comes sports and reality shows.

When it comes to planning and thinking about how users may/will behave regarding social TV and shows, I recommend thinking about it from two perspectives: (1) live interaction and (2) cultural impact. The personal drivers for a lot of these activities have to do with the social perspective. People are interested in “connecting” with others, which drives the interactions (tweeting about your team, someone getting voted off the island, etc). People are also interested in being part of the cultural zeitgeist – Game of Thrones is “in” and “cool” to tweet about, whereas CSI and House are not.

Next up are companion apps – smartphone and/or iPad apps designed for use during a TV show. As above, the potential value creation here is entirely about the content. Do users really want to pull out their phones and read trivia while watching an intense or immersive show like Game of Thrones or The Good Wife? Doubtful. Am I going to look away from a visually-rich experience such as Planet Earth? Or how about Family Guy, where half the show is visual gags? Seems unlikely. But during any reality show, game show, talk show, or sports? I’d guess there’s a huge opportunity here.

Same moral as above, the right companion apps keep the content in mind. First, we really don’t need (or want) a dedicated companion experience for every single show that airs – it’s just plain unnecessary. But regardless of that, the experiences should think about the audience and how they want to interact. Sports is all about real-time and stats. Cooking shows, on the other hand, don’t need a real-time experience, but yet offering recipes, how-to, pictures, etc that can be bookmarked, archived, and viewed in the future is quite handy. Complicated plot-driven shows can offer complementary experiences that supply background or other pertinent information to help audiences keep up with whatever’s going on.

Enhanced content offerings - featurettes, behind-the-scenes, and other options that plunge the user in a further immersive landscape blah blah blah. Now, speaking as the guy who watched all 3 Lord of the Rings movies, extended cut, with director’s commentary on, there’s no question a marketplace exists for extra content. Blooper reels. Making-of’s. Interviews with Cast & Crew. The key focus again is identifying the right content for the right show and deploying it in the right place.

Do I really need a dedicated app for my iPad just to get extra content for each show I like? Do I need to subscribe to something? I think, fundamentally, content creators and technologists need to really spend time crafting the right offering for each individual show. For example, having the “webisodes” of The Office available openly via Facebook each week is a great solution to enhance that offering. But if I needed an Office app, with a new Office username and password, would it be worth the investment beyond the “Like”? Doubtful.

Overall, the time has come for TV technologists, creators, producers, etc to work together to avoid one-size-fits-all approaches to TV experiences. Every show, every network, every device, and every platform should be regarded as a unique opportunity to engage an audience and tell a story. Except, of course, for reality shows about celebutantes, which should just go away. Please folks, just do the right thing here. We can find a cure, we can make it happen. We can do it!

According to Lost Remote, social media was en fuego during the Super Bowl this year. Bluefin Labs contributed to these stats, and found over 12 million “social media comments” during the game. Another element Lost Remote tracked were the plurality of Social TV Second Screen Apps in play:

The best second-screen experience: To start things off, we checked into the game on GetGlue, Miso,IntoNow, Shazam, ConnecTV, Umami, Foursquare and Viggle. Ok, that’s overkill, but we wanted to give them a spin on the biggest social TV event of the year. For starters, GetGlue sailed passed its all-time check-in, counting over 100,000 before halftime and 150,000 total for the game, 3X its all-time record (the company doubled its servers for the Super Bowl.) We’re let you know of other second-screen stats when we get them.

Now that doesn’t include the “official” Super Bowl app, NBC Sports, or a few other options. But overall, I’m see a glass is half empty scenario myself.

The problem was in the experiences. I tweeted a couple of times during the game, by using the Twitter app, which was native and easy to do. The thought of launching another app, just to get something that would enable be to tweet never even crossed my mind. In reality, most of these apps actually got in the way of the experience. And yes, while there was tons of tweeting and updates occurring, I’d lay down a strong bet most of this was about people posting, not reading what others were posting.

I also found the Super Bowl ads highlighted two major flaws in the ad experience. Shazam got a lot of pre-game buzz for all their ad partners. Sounds cool in theory, but the experience is just plain lousy. First, the commerical starts airing. Then, at some point in the middle of the ad a little Shazam logo appears somewhere on the screen (I only noticed it a handful of times personally). At this moment, the viewer must grab their phone, turn it on, unlock it, switch to the Shazam app, and then – and this is important – get everyone in the room to be quiet for 7-10 seconds. Great in theory, but this is not a good experience for any user.

The second was a QR code which displayed on screen. This in my eyes was even worse than Shazam, since QR codes require the user to have a QR app, which is just too obtuse for the average viewer.

worst. crossword. ever.

Compare either the Shazam or QR experience to having a simple URL onscreen. Is it really easier to go through all the hassle and end up on the Honda website, or just tell the user to go to honda.com? Plus, by obfuscating the simple methods, advertisers lose brand reinforcement AND are busy handing over the experience to a third party. Similarly, when it comes to social experiences, is it to a consumers’ advantage to launch an app just to get an update into Twitter or Facebook, or to just use the native ones?

These experiences have come a long way, and are offering exciting potential for the future of TV and second screens. But so far, we’re clearly at the infancy of what the consumer can use to really “enhance” a TV offering. I hope some or many of these offerings will improve over the years, and really create a better experience, not one that makes us work harder just to watch TV.

For the 14 people who missed the Super Bowl this year, a “notable” commercial was the debut of the Samsung Galaxy Note, which basically enlisted virtually every trick of the trade. Hipster rock band? Check. Playful teasing of Apple users? Check. Flashy seeming new gadget? Check. Tablet with a stylus? Check. Wait a sec, rewind, what is this, 1998? Or, as I tweeted (and BTW, Twitter – yet another simple feature: enable easy embedding and reblogging of tweets to other platforms, because screenshots? really?):

So my advice this evening is to Samsung and everyone else competing with the iPad – which is actually nobody in reality. If you want to play this game, you need to stop grasping at straws. Go build a damn good product and the market will support your endeavors. I’d heard some interesting buzz about the Note, that it might be the first “other” tablet to give the iPad a real run for its money. And then? StylusGate.

Now wait, maybe it’s not about consumers. Maybe it’s enterprise or other specific applications. I’m sure there’s a decent market in several verticals for a tablet with a stylus (something I blogged about a full year ago now!). But your marketing wasn’t about some productivity device, it was about consumers.

Does anyone really think any hipster, businessman, student, soccer mom, or any other typical consumer with an iota of self-respect would walk around using a stylus when everyone else doesn’t have to and can accomplish the exact same goals? That commercial didn’t show a product superior to an iPad.

That’s the key thing here. The stylus is showing up in an effort to get on par with the iPad’s user experience.

Shipping a product implies it’s been manufactured, packaged, and transported into a distribution facility, and in some way allocated by a retailer. It hasn’t necessarily been purchased by the retailer yet, nor has it been sold to a consumer. Which means a massive cost was incurred by the manufacturer, with no revenue so far. Further, even if the retailer has made some form of purchasing agreement/commitment, they typically have many many ways to back out if units aren’t moving. All, of course, at the expense of the manufacturer. This is how Logitech lost $100 million on the Revues, as they made a bunch, but couldn’t sell them. As Seinfeld might’ve put it: “See, you know how to ship the product, you just don’t know how to sell the product and that’s really the most important part of the product, the selling. Anybody can just ship them.”

So let’s go back to that report. 10.5 million Android tablets shipped in Q4. Not too shabby. Now Apple did just announce they sold 15.4 million iPads in the same quarter. So we know we aren’t talking oranges-to-oranges comparisons already.

I’m going to add in a personal observation/anecdote here, take it with a grain of salt. In the past year, at over 20 conferences, 30 flights, and possibly hundreds of meetings, I’ve seen about 15 android tablets in use “in the wild”. I’ll go as high as 20. That’s it. Not only isn’t it close to 40%, it’s not even close to 1% of the tablets I’ve seen in use, in every major metropolitan area in North America. But that’s not a fair way to look at it, so I’ll assume I’m off by a few percent, especially including the international market plus the recent hotness of the Kindle Fire.

According to a variety of reports (best from iSuppli), tablets cost manufacturers between $200-$300 to manufacture, on average. So again, averaging it all out (which isn’t exactly right, but that’s kind of the theme of my blog anyway, right?) at $250 times 9 million units equals holy crap.

$2,250,000,000

Oh, and this doesn’t include marketing, packaging, shipping, warehousing, taxes, and all the other costs involved. Please, somebody, show me how I’m wrong! No, seriously, I don’t actually want to be right here!

Evernote is one of my few mobile/iPad/Web/OS X utilities – I use it everywhere. I have notes, future blog post ideas, libraries (I have virtually every quality “Future of TV” article written archives in a Evernote folder), lists, etc. I keep copies of everything in my wallet, just in case. I have an archive of every serial number of all white good appliances in my house (for when I call for service – especially the often-needed repairs – I’m looking at you, Miele and Whirlpool). Everybody should use Evernote, all the time, for all purposes. It might just save the world. Free (with paid upgrades for heavy users).

Note: saving the world not guaranteed by myself nor the makers of Evernote.

This “interactive storybook” has kept my 4 year old entranced for months. It’s a simple retelling of the classic story, with some fun humor, and lots and lots of interactive elements. There’s a little “golden egg” hidden somewhere on every page, plus tons of other clever little items. One of my top 2 kids apps. Paid app.

This is a great sketching tool, useful for me and fun for my kids as well – a very rare combination. The app has simple tools for drawing and doodling, can import your photos for fun, and has a great “stamp” tool. Only downside is each new build seems to add some new popup that wants me to pay for something – which I “get” as it’s free, but I’d happily pay them something to get rid of the popups forever.

This is the best Tower Defense game I’ve seen on the iPad (and I’ve tried most of them so far). Easy levels are fun, hard levels are challenging, and the “madness” levels are so tough that beating them feels like a real accomplishment. And unfortunately, I’m not Ender, so killing all these aliens is squarely a waste of time (except that I think everyone should play more video games. possibly the real way to save the world, since I was definitely wrong about it being Evernote). Awesome game, and one that the developers continue to improve, which is a major plus for me – one of the few games I’ve played on the iPad that keeps getting enhanced! Paid app.

I do a lot of wireframing work, most of which I do using Balsamiq, one of the few desktop apps I’ve purchased in the past few years (worth every penny). iMockups is not quite as polished a tool, but gives me the ability to do the same via the iPad. It could use a few enhancements (search!), and isn’t the most beautiful app I’ve seen, but it’s a solid performer. Paid.

I’m rarely a big “immersive experience and storyline” gamer – I tend to care about the gameplay, balance, and flow more than anything else. But World of Goo is the only game I play where I make sure the sound is on and I can get into it for a while. The game itself is a fun puzzler, it’s perfectly suited for touch, and the storytelling and ambiance is perfect. I’m hoping for a sequel, but in the mean time keep coming back to finish the OCD levels (don’t call it that!). Paid.

Parents: go download Toontastic now. No, seriously, get it. It’s an animated storybook creator, and the user experience is so great my 4 year old can fully make the animations himself. And that includes the narration, background effects, character and scene selection, and every other perfectly customizable detail. It’s really great, and even has tons of online sharing features for those into that kind of stuff (I’m not, but I know everyone else is). Oh, and not only is it that great, it’s free. Wowza.

Zite is the only app to make both my iPhone and iPad lists. It’s my ultimate source of “being informed” on topics I care about. Yes Flipboard is more popular, and Editions is beautiful (and built by friends of mine but I had already gotten so deep into using Zite that I just couldn’t switch – sorry guys), but Zite just does it for me (and personalized flow of info is a big deal when it comes to news reader type of apps, so I understand why people get so loyal to the ones they start with). When Zite got acquired by CNN I was pretty happy for the guys behind it, and now, months later, I’m still happy that it hasn’t become the “CNN” of news reading apps. Love. Free.

And, just like in iPhone, here are the runners up:

AppShopper – keep track of when the paid apps I’m interested in go on sale

#sworcery - it’s beautiful, I just don’t find myself with the time to play as much as I want

NHL Gamecenter – on the plus side, I can watch the Habs play, either in real-time or catch-up. on the unbelievably pathetic down side, I can rarely watch catch-up without seeing the score in advance, because apparently the NHL doesn’t seem to care about those of us who cannot watch live hockey at 4pm multiple days per week.

Ticket to Ride – perfect adaptation of board game, just wish they’d let me speed up all the animations.

Majesty – another fun non-RTS RTS game

Dropbox – yup, it’s Dropbox – on the iPad. moving on.

Kayak – taking the depth of booking travel and making it work on an iPad is a challenge, and the Kayak app hits it out of the park

Waze – great on the iPhone, even greater on the iPad – free turn-by-turn nav!

Catan HD – would make my main list, but the app is just too unstable.

ColoramaMask – another fun drawing app for kids

Fingerzilla – crush, stomp, tap, destroy!!!

Pat The Bunny – good kids interactive experience

Talking Tom – silly fun

IMDB – if you are a movie nerd like me, you probably don’t need to be told about the app…

The most interesting revelation I had whilst writing these two lists is the breakdown of paid vs free apps. On my iPhone only 2/10 “top” apps were ones I shelled out invisible coins for. Whereas on the iPad, 5 out of 8 were paid (though if memory serves at least one was a free weekend download, but I could be wrong). If I was a real reporter I’d go through my transactions to figure out how much money I’ve spent on each platform. But I’m not, so instead, thus endeth the blog post.

Sharing your favorites seems to be the hip thing to do, so I thought I’d share my absolute favorite apps on both my iPhone and iPad (not including any default iOS apps). These are basically the apps I use all the time, and really enjoy using. There’s also quite a few apps I use daily, but might not like as much, as well as apps I think are amazing, but only use on a very infrequent basis. And there are also apps I don’t much like and rarely use, but I didn’t really see the point in including those…

One other note – I picked apps from all categories, including games, social, etc. Also, I didn’t deliberately pick 10, it just worked out that way. First up – iPhone fave’s (in no particular order, btw).

Chef’s Feed is a fun app for foodies (wannabe foodies as well). The app has a list of the “top” chefs of a city, and said chefs have picked their favorite dishes (not restaurants) to eat. The app lets you make a bucket list of dishes that appeal to you, and also is a handy way to find a good bite when you aren’t sure what to eat. Free app.

It’s like Scrabble, only more “balanced” so players at many levels can really enjoy the game. Vocabulary and knowledge of “Scrabble words” is very helpful, and tile placement strategy is essential to win, but regardless, it’s possibly the best non real-time game time waster app out there. Free and paid versions.

Simply put: Test Flight lets app developers send you their apps prior to putting them in the iTunes App store. It’s great for previewing or testing out apps in development. If you are an app developer and are not using Test Flight, you should start now. Free to consumers, paid by developers.

GrubHub is an app that replaces all the crappy little delivery menus restaurants leave on your door (though hey, free rubber band). They have tons of local restaurants, plus in-app ordering, and, as pictured above, an order history which makes it super convenient to remember where you liked (or hated) to eat. Free app.

Yeah, I know, cliche, whatever. You prefer Blue Bottle, great, so do I, but $12 for a latte that takes 45 minutes to make doesn’t always work out for me. The Starbucks app does one main thing: let me not have to carry my Starbucks card around. Nice. Free app.

After Words, Temple Run is the next best time-killer game I know. Basically, you run, and run, and run, and then run a bit more. You jump, duck, pivot, and you turn yourself around, and that’s what it’s all about. Free.

Gosh I love Zite. Zite brings me articles I want, on topics I like, and does so with sickeningly good accuracy. While Twitter (and vis-a-vis Flipboard, Pulse, etc) are great for bringing me feeds on a variety of topics, the one thing these apps fail to deliver for me is topical content based on my interests, not my followers or those I am following. I open Zite, I find content I like. Life is good. Oh, and – free.

Plants vs Zombies - it’s fairly new to me, I’m having fun playing but I’m not sure how long it’ll hold my interest. Could be a winner, not sure yet. Paid.

WhiteNoise – self explanatory. Free and paid versions.

Flixter – movie lookups (solid app, just don’t get to see many movies). Free.

IMDB – satisfies inner movie nerd needs. Free.

Path – just started experimenting. Beautiful app design. Does all that Facebook stuff, only without the massive invasion of privacy. Also, just for your real-world friends (you remember those, right?). Free.

And for me, once the novelty wore off, what I found was that Siri is not so intelligent after all—it’s simply another voice program that will obey very specific commands. If it knows those commands. If it can understand you. And if it has a network connection. Were this Google, or Microsoft, I’d shrug. But it’s not, it’s Apple. And Apple is the company that sells perfection. It’s a company that usually keeps its promises, and in its Siri ads, it promises far more than what it actually delivers. That’s not what any of us signed up for.

I’d agree with most of that. So it’s really about managing expectations. I will agree with Mat that the commercials and hype around Siri do not set the right expectations. If you think you can talk to your phone and it’ll just do exactly the thing you said, the way you meant it, you are in for a world of disappointment. This was about how I felt back in the first few days of taking Siri for a test spin (talk?).

Now, a few weeks later, I’ve found Siri a great component of the iPhone 4S overall experience. Today I had to get to the office, was driving, and was in a rush. “Driving directions to work”. Perfect. Last week, wanted to know when Hannukah starts. “When is Chhhhanukah?”. Winner. Again, driving, running late to get home. “Send a message to my wife” followed by “Stuck in traffic will be home soon”. Bingo.

If you can get your head around how Siri works, what it knows, and more importantly, what it doesn’t know, you can really enjoy the ability of controlling a device by talking to it. It can’t do a whole bundle of things I want it to do, for example:

“Turn on Bluetooth” – this would be awesome. Not present.

“Launch Evernote” – yup.

“Read me my last email” – cool, thanks!

“Browse www.livedigitally.com”. must-have.

There are effectively no limits, no upper bounds to what an enhanced or improved interface could offer over existing ones. This is true for gestures, for voice, for physical recognition, etc. But, in all cases, the user must know absolutely what they’ll be getting out of that experience. If the consumer expects too much, and is delivered too little, they’ll abandon it. This is true for trusted experiences as well – if a gesture is inconsistent, or voice-to-speech is intermittent – consumers will try it, play around for a while, but mostly give up on it.

For me, Siri is in the “it can be handy from time to time” category, and as such, is something I’ve grown to like. I don’t use it often, because I know when it will/won’t help me out, but my “hit rate” is pretty good these days. It also has a good potential for amusement…

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About

Jeremy Toeman is SVP of Product Development for Viggle. He has over 15 years experience in the convergence of digital media, mobile entertainment, social entertainment, smart TV and consumer technology. Prior ventures and projects include Dijit Media (recently acquired by Viggle) Sling Media, VUDU, Clicker, DivX, Rovi, Mediabolic, Boxee, and many other consumer technology companies.